


Echo

by draculard



Category: Kill Creek - Scott Thomas
Genre: Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Consensual Possession, F/F, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Major spoilers for the end of the book obvs, Masturbation, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:51:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: After she meets Rebecca, everything changes.





	Echo

She’s looking down into the stagnant water lapping over the basement floor when her pupil mends itself; one moment it’s like the split yolk of a fried egg and the next it’s whole, unmarred, a perfect circle, and she doesn’t feel anything but she sees it all happen in the warped reflection staring back at her from the water.

Upstairs, a hatchet with the name Goodman carved on its handles slams into Sebastian’s ribs with so much force that the bone splinters and small slivers of it fly back to stab Daniel in the hands. 

Upstairs, Sam thunders up the steps to the third floor and dives through the hole, cutting his stomach open and tearing his shirt on the bricks.

And downstairs, T.C. Moore watches time reverse inside the reflection of her eyes.

“Come here,” says the woman standing in the dark. 

Carefully, trailing her fingers through the water, Moore obeys. She feels scum and algae clinging to her skin as she wades to the corner of the room. The figure there is too obscure for her to make out its face, and the closer she gets, the more difficult it becomes to discern any features. It’s like a writhing black nest hides the woman’s face — a bird’s nest made of scavenged twigs and ribbons and strings all twisted up together, all twitching, all impenetrably dark. 

The woman in the corner holds out her hand, and Moore takes it. She feels cool, waxy flesh against her palm. She hears a buzzing in her ears like wasps, threatening to drown out the woman’s words — but there can’t be any wasps here, she knows. There can’t be any life here at all. Not uninvited.

“I’m Rebecca,” says the woman solemnly.

Moore’s eyes slide down from the black hair pulled tight in a bun, to the dowdy Miss Havisham dress, to the two legs standing firmly and strongly on the surface of the water.

And she understands everything.

* * *

When she turns on the TV in her hospital room, it’s set to the six o’clock news, and Sebastian’s cover photo is staring back at her from the screen.

“Celebrated author—” the anchor says.

Moore squeezes her eyes shut. She squeezes them until a sharp pain forms between her eyebrows. A new headache to muster until something brushes over her forehead, something that feels almost like a cool, soothing hand. Something that takes the pain away.

“—murdered by axe in Kill Creek Township.”

She remembers how he held her hand in New York outside Adudel’s apartment, how he pushed aside all his own fears to examine her nails and make a quip, to put them all at ease. How he came between her and Daniel on their first trip to the house, gently steering them away from a fight.

How he wrote her story out so sweetly, every sentence perfect, every paragraph rising and falling like a master orchestra giving the best performance the world would ever hear, how he accepted her new form with grace, with love, and—

Oh. This memory isn’t hers.

Moore stares at the TV screen. In her head she sees Sebastian in his fine old country home, in his study with its view of the garden, staring at someone who sits there preparing tea. Staring at her with love, with adoration. Sebastian, vibrant and happy and strong, with a full head of hair and bright, clear eyes.

Sebastian, working on the book which would have made them famous once again.

“Well,” Moore says to herself, turning off the TV with a lump in her throat, “I’m glad you miss him, too.”

* * *

In her books, the sex is violent and explicit. Before she wrote horror, she slapped her name on self-published erotica of the most shameless, plotless variety. Her characters thrive on sex: anonymous sex; abusive sex; sex that leaves bruises on body and mind; quick, painful sex and long, biting sessions; sex with men too old and girls too young, and always, _ always _ there’s something there that shouldn’t be.

Too many teeth.

A second layer of skin.

An orgasm which everyone involved wants to deny.

But despite this, and despite her phallic tastes in home decor, there’s not much T.C. Moore enjoys about sex. It’s a necessity; she partakes only when the carefully-constructed traps in her brain align to demand it. It’s too boring to be pleasurable, not painful enough to be interesting. When her orgasm finally comes, it’s brief and weak, like a static surge on the radio interrupting a mediocre song.

After meeting Rebecca, things change.

Moore runs a hand over her hair, cut short and choppy, and feels long hair pulled back into a bun. She touches the flat, hard panes of her stomach and feels soft, vulnerable skin. 

She touches her cunt and finds it unfamiliar. It’s exactly the same as it’s always been, but there’s a physical echo overlaid with it, an echo she can feel but can’t see. With her thumb on her clit, she feels a spark of pleasure run through a spine that isn’t entirely her own.

“Do you like this?” she whispers.

She feels a brush of air against her bare breasts in response — a tightening around her nipples, like a pinch.

“I do, too,” Moore says. She tightens her nails on her clit, letting the sharp edge dig into the most sensitive flesh on her body.

Rebecca flinches, then smiles.

And Moore doesn’t feel a thing.


End file.
